Genderalisations

Something else I've missed during my time out in the big bad world of no internets is the blog over at RoughKut. It's nice to know I'm not the only one who thinks too hard about fedding. Of the blogs I missed while I was away, one jumped out at me on the grounds of it being on a subject near and dear to my heart: women's wrestling. People think of me as a big fan of women's wrestling; really, I'm just a wrestling fan, but unlike many wrestling fans - so it seems - I consider women's wrestling equal to men's. Even though Kut's blog on playing female characters is a few months old now, I can't not respond to it. Go read his excellent blog, as well as Sky's equally excellent reply in the comments field, then come back and read the rest of this, biznitches :p

To clarify, first off, I am a man. I have played a number of characters over the years, both male and female, but far and away my most successful was female. I don't think this is weird at all - what I'm interested in is a character's personality, and gender is just another small part of the myriad things which make up one's personality. Playing someone of a different gender to oneself needn't be any more of a problem than playing someone of a different age, nationality or socioeconomic background. In fact most fedders of my acquaintance, male or female, have played characters of both genders. It's not just in fedding; I have two current characters for pen-and-paper roleplay games, one of whom is male and the other of whom is female, and again, I'm in games with both women who play men and men who play women.

Kut's blog focuses on the question of intergender combat - and lawdy, is this a contentious subject. The first point which always comes up is the physical mechanics - the question of whether or not men are physically capable of fighting women. Kut and Sky weigh up the two sides pretty effectively in the linked blog. I have to say, I agree with Sky over Kut. To my mind, the idea that women can't fight is ridiculous. In a lot of martial arts, intergender combat is an accepted part of the sport, and IRL I've fought women and won, and I've fought women and lost. Neither gives me any shame at all, and I don't care who thinks it should.

However, it's a clouded issue in wrestling somewhat, because wrestling - as a martial art - is based around weight and upper body strength, where men have the undeniable advantage. The average woman isn't going to be able to take on Kurt Angle on his terms. The answer to that is, naturally, to not go on his terms. Size is one thing which can be used as a physical advantage. So, if you know how to use it, is being small. In general smaller people are harder to hit, faster, and have better conditioning and thus more stamina. Remember, fights are won in the mind, and it's how you use your own strengths and your opponent's weaknesses that matter.

All that is only one part of the debate, however. From those who don't know combat well, there are some darker stock responses to intergender combat. First, it's some kind of dirty sexual thing. It's for people who want to see someone dominate another person. And sadly, while I know that I don't have any sexual interest in intergender combat, and nor do most of the handlers I know, I can't deny that a handful do. All I can say to those people is: please respect that some of us just like to portray two fighters competing, and don't care about their genders.

The other is that it's sexist, or that it's promoting violence against women. Here, I disagree entirely. People too often confuse 'violence against women' with domestic violence. Domestic violence is abhorrent, no matter what the genders of the respective parties. But two adults competing in a fair fight is not domestic violence. What's sexist, to my mind, is telling women that because of their gender, they shouldn't be allowed to compete if they want to. But of course, there are certain branches of feminism which aren't actually interested in equality - just in making a stink about any vaguely related issue they can find. Same as anything, really.

The other big area Kut touches on is allowing women to compete for men's titles. Those who know me personally will know that I have always, always opposed gender-based titles in fedding, as well as titles segregated by weight category and nationality. This is as much about practicality as anything else; it's often hard enough getting enough people interested in chasing titles as it is without imposing restrictions which are based along fundamentally arbitrary lines. I understand the realism question - WWE and TNA keep things separated, so feds should too - but you know something? As far as I'm concerned, it's WWE and TNA who need to catch up there.

But then we're getting into the question of 'wrestling logic' where what happens in the world of pro wrestling, no matter how unrealistic, is accepted as the correct reality for fedding. I've been thinking about that one for some time, and there will be a post coming about it. For now, if you want to test 'wrestling logic' for yourself, here's an experiment: Try doing a front suplex on someone, then try doing a fisherman's suplex on someone, and decide which was easier.*


*Don't actually do that :p. Y'know - don't try this at blah blah blah whatever.

You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake.

Hey kids. Sorry for the big gap in updates. You'd be amazed how much costochondritis can jerk around your passion for things.

So. Guessing game time. Guess what annoys me most on a new contract. Using the entrance music of whoever happens to be popular in WWE right now? Nope. One of the same handful of picbases every fed seems to be clogged up with? Nope. Yet another psycho heel promising to cleanse the promotion of the scum inhabiting it? Nope. A 400lb guy pulling moonsaults and planchas as regular moves? No, not even that.

Annoying as all of that stuff is, what's really guaranteed to kill my interest in a contract is being told about how the character is a huge deal, a million-time hall of famer, a trillion-time world champion, courted by major sponsors, a worldwide legend the fans will clamour for and opponents will fall weak at the knees just thinking about.

No, you're not.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but a hobby as loose and informal as e-fedding doesn't work that way. It doesn't matter how big you are, how much you've accomplished - pick a random startup fed from Chris Hart's, and chances are nobody there will have heard of you. If Edge or Cena joined TNA tomorrow, they'd start at the top, but all of TNA's fans will instantly recognise them. Much of the time in fedding, that ain't gonna happen - you're only known to the people you've shared a fed with. Why should bookers make you a main eventer right from the off when they haven't even seen your writing? How are your opponents supposed to respond to a Hogan-level superstar, about whom they know absolutely nothing? This comes back to the unified canon thing; being a world champion basically means nothing in e-fedding, outside of one fed and its circle of affiliates. I don't mean that to denigrate titles within that context, but pretty much every character who's been around more than a couple of years has been a world champion somewhere.

Okay, look at Asylum or Magnum's list of accomplishments, and you can't help but be impressed. These are guys who've almost never been without a title, who've held literally scores of honours over their careers. Clearly, you don't get that much without experience and talent. But that doesn't mean that when someone as good as Asylum or Magnum walks into a random fed, they're automatically pushed to the top of the card. Yet I see no end of people with less than a quarter of those achievements expecting exactly that to happen to them. Sorry, but just no.

The Size Advantage

A big barometer of success in running an e-fedding seems to be the size of your fed - the number of weekly shows you produce, the number of members you have. The larger the better. RoughKut definitely works on this principle. Something occurred to me about that recently - it's bullshit. I've been on feds with 200+ members and you know something? I hated them. They're impersonal and cliquey. More members means you're less likely to go under but it also means that newer or less active members are more likely to be marginalised.

I can see the counter-argument to that; newer and less active members ought to have an incentive to become an active part of the community and get further up the card. The larger a roster is, the tougher the field is, the harder the glass ceiling is to break, and that stimulates members to work harder. Those who aren't interested in pushing themselves that hard shouldn't have joined in the first place.

This makes the mistake of assuming everyone wants the same thing, that everyone wants to be the most successful wrestler, and every fed ought to want to be the most successful - what about those who just want to hang out and have fun? It's a chicken/egg situation - on large feds, very often, only established veterans become big players - but only big players become established veterans. Furthermore, I for one have always found storytelling less involved in any fed of about 100+ members; there's so much going on you're expected to keep track of and so few people are interested in anyone else's storylines.

Now, I'm not saying that all large feds ought to keel over and die. Promotions like Pro Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. have their place, no doubt, and there's nothing wrong with being competitive. But there's also nothing wrong with NOT being so competitive. But personally when I want to get to know a bunch of people, kick back and have a laugh, and more than anything really roleplay with others rather than just compete for championships, I'm going to go to a smaller and more intimate place.

I'm stopping now before this devolves into ludology versus narratology - don't worry, I'm sure that one will come too at some point. :P